On December 3, 2013, Pablo Olmeda, 52, was killed in Birmingham after what witnesses described as an argument on the 4200 block of 3rd Avenue South. According to Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper, officers arrived to find him lying face down on the sidewalk, shot, after the confrontation turned deadly. Roper said Olmeda was transient, and investigators believed the men responsible went through his pockets after the shooting, adding a hard, cruel edge to an already violent scene.
What police said happened next gave the case a narrow trail but not a resolution. A witness reported seeing Olmeda arguing with two Black males dressed in black when one of them pulled a pistol and shot him. The pair then ran toward Havenwood Apartments, got into a burgundy Buick Regal, and drove east on 3rd Avenue South. Weeks later, Roper was still publicly asking for tips in a Crime Stoppers appeal, framing the killing as an unsolved case and urging anyone who knew even a small missing piece to come forward.
In the online reporting and public Birmingham homicide materials available through search, no suspect was publicly identified by name in Olmeda’s case, and no arrest, charge, trial, or conviction tied to his killing surfaced. The trail that remains in public view is the one left in those first witness accounts: a sidewalk shooting, two men disappearing into the night, and a case that, at least from the sources available online, never reached a public breakthrough.
